# The map

The **Map** step lays out your [locations](/docs/locations) and the roads between them.
**Connections are how the party moves.** A location with no connections can't be reached,
however good its description.

![The Map step showing connected locations and travel routes](/images/docs/map-step.png)

## Connecting places

- **Drag a location onto another** to offer a connection between them.
- **Click a connection's distance** to change how far apart the two are. Travel takes in-game
  time based on distance and the `travelSpeed` [formula](/docs/formulas).
- **Remove a connection** with the × on its line.

Moving nodes:

- **Shift-click** adds a location to the selection; grabbing a selected one moves the whole
  group, keeping its shape. Use it to move a village, a ship or a dungeon floor at once.
- **Shift-drag** on empty canvas draws a selection box. A plain drag pans.

Prompt for the layout instead of dragging every node:

> Lay the village out along the shore, with the lighthouse at the far end past the cliffs

## Backdrop art

The map can sit on a picture of your world. You paint it roughly, and the art is drawn from
your paint.

1. **Add terrain**: each entry is a color, a name and what it looks like (_The Verdant Reach_:
   _dense old-growth forest, mist in the valleys_). The name shows as a label on the player's
   map. Terrain is art only: the narrator and the rules never read it, so put anything the
   story should know in [lore](/docs/lore) or a location's description.
2. **Paint on map**: brush each terrain's color roughly where it lies. `B` draws, `E` erases,
   `H` pans.
3. **Generate Art** turns the paint into finished map art, following each terrain's
   description.
4. Leave **Align nodes** ticked to have the finished art read back and each location moved onto
   the part drawn for it. It costs a few credits; the checkbox shows the estimate.

Or **Upload image** to use your own art, then **Move image**, **Scale** and **Opacity** to line it
up with your locations.